Single Mom Letters

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Melody the white mouse was
replaced with Needles the little gray (feeder) mouse.

Our household is again
replete with critters. I am not scared or disgusted but I am a cat person…

My daughter is in Colorado
for ten days at a ranch with her classmates. She attends Options for Youth
which is a charter school with a minimal attendance requirement.A hybrid between her unschooling homeschool
past and traditional all day school.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Old habits die hard. I do
understand this. One of my mothers’ habits was to go to the See’s Candy shop.

What kid would turn this
down? I certainly never did. I am not sure I had a favorite confection. I think
I liked the adventure of trial and error.

When my daughter was born
my mother became a doting Gramma.

As my daughter got older she would go for
weekends off to Gramma and Grampas house.

I had told my parents that
I was not giving the child candy or sweets. They thought this was nuts for some
reason. I do not know why.

Anyone who knows anything about toddlers and preschoolers knows they do
not need caffeine or sugar to be peppy. So I am not sure what all my parents
were thinking.

For her very first birthday
I baked a cake with about 1/3rd of the specified amount of sugar and
substituted flavored cream cheese for frosting. It was tasty but not overly
sweet and to my mind a splurge for the kiddo.

Time went on and I thought
my parents had mellowed out worrying that I was depriving their grandchild.

They did eventually come around to my way of thinking and acknowledge that my prohibition
on desserts for the child had not hindered her and might actually have been a
good idea.

It was some time later this
little secret came out:

Gramma would take the child
to See’s but get her only vanilla lollypops so that if she got messy with them
the other darker colors would not stain her clothes and clue me in that she’d
been having sweets.

Sneaky silly girls.

My official ban lasted
until my daughter was old enough to argue convincingly with me at around 4 or 5
with more of an understanding of the world around her and what she might be
missing.

No telling what impact my
parents had on this.

Grampa was rather open minded in his candy consumption. I
am not sure he ever took me to See’s but I am sure we brought him home goodies
from time to time.

Friday, June 7, 2013

So I
bought three skeins of yarn recently. One got away from me and wandered onto
the floor across the living room. There it has lived and stayed for at least a
month untouched.

The
kitties run freely all over the house. There are two cats but one is mine and
the other was the neighbors and is now being claimed by my daughter.

Might
I mention that the neighbors moved out. Literally we live in condo’s and they
were the next door over. We hardly spoke. They have not left town and might
indeed still live close but there are no planned visits. We have had the cat
months if not a year or two and they have not even asked to see it.

Right
before moving they adopted a kitten. They have a dog too.

Anyway
my daughter told me they said “If we move they want their cat back.”

IN WHAT ALTERNATE REALITY ???

That
cat has fleas so bad she got down to about 20% of her fur (the hair balls to
authenticate this have littered our home), with the fleas she finally got worms
and because there are two cats in our home, my cat who had a minor flea problem
also got worms.

When
only she had them I tried to give her worm medicine $20 for a small bottle. For
a four pound cat she is feisty and was not fond of this. Such that it was not
done regularly, thrice daily as required. When I finally figured out that I
needed and could give it in their drinking water they both needed it but the
medicine ran out.

I
bought a knock off Advantage type product. It worked 80% well. A friend of my
daughters is a vet tech or something so she sent us the real Advantage. Finally
we are flea free and the poor mini fluff ball is returning to full poof.

She
has shredded my kitchen chairs. It is less of an issue because I have no
kitchen table and no room to put them or it in should I have one. Still now the
leather or faux leather is pox marked looking.

We
took her in because they left her outside and she was thinning plus suffering
the abuses of an outdoor only cat.

They
want her back if we leave this condo???

What
bills will they be paying for the use of us as a kitty shelter and kennel? LOL

Truly
I would do all of this for free to the point that I could afford.

I
thought it was my daughter being silly when she said “When I move out I am
taking my cat.”

At the time with the family still living next door I thought
they might object to their cat leaving the complex. The idea that they would
leave never crossed my mind. She has been getting out occasionally now that the
weather is both warm and dry. I know the neighbors are happy to know she is
alive and well in our care. Such that if they happened to see her outside they
would enjoy her.

The
idea that they would leave and expect us to stay or return the cat, now that is
funny.

Anyway
I was talking about my cat. She is used to my yarn, supplies and life being
strewn about the house etc.

Suddenly
out of nowhere a day or two ago she started attacking the stray skein of new
yarn on the ground. She was shaking it and carried it a few inches. She bit
into it and pulled puckers of strands away from the form.

I
sat on the couch trying not to have to get up and save it but watching her
fascinated that she suddenly cared.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

So we’ve had an EXCITING week and not totally in a good way. Winning a
stop in the Top 25 Single Mom blog challenge by Circle of Moms is an honor I
have to share with my friends and followers here in social media.

In off line life however the teen had food poisoning. She as not even home
half the time she was dealing with it. She got a little ill… thought she was
fine and recovered so she left.

It was a day later that her Facebook updates said “I feel like I am dying.”By
then thankfully as these things go the worst of it was mostly over.

Poor Melody the mouse did not survive all the house hopping she has been
doing. I did not know rodents aresensitive to sound.

I knew we would be okay yesterday when I could hear my daughter singing up
stairs as she worked on cleaning her room and other girly teen things out of
sight.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The time before last when I went grocery shopping I bought oats and Granny Smith apples. You should know what that means.

Apple Crisp! YUM

This dessert is so easy and relatively healthy due to both the apples
and the oats.

It is super simple and fast as well. It bakes in about half an hour.
Which is great because when I finally got around to making this one I had a
small, small window such that I had to leave the house to take a final about 40
minutes after I put it in the oven.

Piled on top of that I had a morning class. It just made for busy days
our schedules this quarter. That mixed with the cold spells here and there made
the warm spiced comfort food delight that much more delish'.

Grab a large baking dish 9x12 or so will do. I like mine thin but you can get more of a deep dish effect by using a smaller pan.

4 Cups of sliced apples (Approximately 4)

3/4 Cup packed brown sugar

1/2 Cup flour

1/2 Cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats

1/3 Cup butter softened

3/4 Teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 Teaspoon ground nutmeg

I take one third to one half of the sugar and sprinkle it with the spices over the apples in the dish.

Then sift the dry ingredients and cut in the butter until you have a uniform consitnencey. Sprinkle the resulting mixture fully over the apples.

Bake 350 for 25-40 minutes. Apples should be softened and the crust should cook and begin to brown and crisp just slightly. That is how you can tell it is done.

Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. I eat mine plain but people like it al a mode aka with a scoop of vanilla ice cream which could also be fun.

Living in a split level I have resorted to using the oven to heat the
downstairs when the temperature really dipped. So it was nice to have the thing
on and the smell of food actually coming out of it.

Most of what I eat these days can be cooked on the stove or reheated in
the toaster oven. I no longer microwave but the daughter likes the ease that
affords.

She has tried her hand at making pasta which came out better than
average considering she had no experience and was just kind of going on a whim
that day. She has however not ventured too far into baking. Cookies and
cupcakes so far has been her limit.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

A few years back had the daughter and I living together, in a one bedroom apartment trying to get back on our feet as a family unit.

It was a spacious
one bedroom but we had­­­ furniture for a two bedroom apartment.

We live in a two bedroom condo now. So why do I feel that strange, over
run by animals feeling, creeping up on me again? Maybe it is because my daughter
brought home a feeder mouse as a pet.

Did anyone forget we have two cats? Does anyone have any idea how to
feed and care for a pet mouse? What the heck is going on here?

Oh well Melody the mouse is cute enough in a rodent sort of way.

The
cats agree...

Back to the one bedroom.

Maybe it was not the size but my daughters
perspective on it all, life and pet ownership.

So we took in two kittens from a
litter a few doors down from us. Their mother had not litter box trained them.
That was an adventure.

A cute little adventure that had me digging a kitten out
from behind wall furniture but we made it past that hurdle.

Then a mom I knew through social media sent out an SOS about a friends'
cat they were trying to adopt into their household. The friend was out of town
or out of state for good and had left two cats.

One was fine and one was not
doing so well. Her house, with two little kids under 7 was too much for this
older kitty. Would anyone take her.

We said yes. The family even delivered her to us in a cardboard pet
carrier. I set the carrier inside the apartment and went back out to say goodbye to the
family.

My daughter opened the carrier and either tried to take the cat out or put
a kitten in…

What was inside the carrier was a grumpy, SMELLY, anti social, fully grown,
black, female cat with talons not claws.

This did not go over well.

She hissed
at the kitten who for the first time in it’s life arched it’s back and puffed
out in defense mode scared to death!

To all of this, weeks later, my daughter wanted to add yet another kitten
from the litter.

I said "No". She kept asking. I held firm. So did she.

One afternoon she was on the patio with the third kitten. Through the screen she
tried to tempt me to agree to adding it to our household. I
really thought she was nuts. She got mad at me for not budging.

Finally I said

"Listen here is the deal, no other living creature can
live in our home. Five is enough. So you can add the cat if you want to sleep
outside. Otherwise the answer will remain no."

She gave me a mean look and stopped talking to me but eventually she
came inside, without the kitten.

Friday, February 22, 2013

After a recent shopping adventure I told my daughter to cook some flank steaks I had brought home.

The kitchen was a mess so while she was cooking I was washing dishes. We decided on a rice dish to go with our protein so that was working as well.

With all my distraction the food was ready before I could finish. After she had taken a few bites of her meal I asked my daughter if the meat came out okay.

Yes she said the prep had come out well but the steak she was eating was a tad bit salty.
"I don't know why" she said "I always season my meat the same way."

"It could not be that you over seasoned by a tad could it?" I asked

To which she replied "Oh no it can't be that."

"So then it is what the cows fault?" I asked

"Yes!" she said

So I started laughing and I said "Darn that salty cow." She countered with

"Yeah it is because you bought organic." and I nearly lost it. I was laughing so hard. What the heck kiddo? Whatever you say...

I hope she will realize for next time that thinner meat might not need as much seasoning but my pieces were not overly salted so she did not do a bad job.

Before this she had gotten a hankering for friend chicken one night and chicken breast the next. Both of which she artfully prepared all by herself.

Then more recently she decided one night she needed to make cup cakes. One of our many problems that night was that we had no baking soda.

I thumbed through my Betty Crocker Cookbook as well as searching the web.I think we ended up adapting the Silver White Cake recipe. We added chocolate powder and used oil for the shortening.

2 1/4 cups cake flour

1 1/2 cups white sugar

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 egg whites

Since we were not going for an all white cake we used two whole eggs as well in lieu of four egg whites.

Sift the dry items and add the liquids. Stir all together and put in prepared pans etc.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes if making cup cakes. Ours came out yummy. I ate a couple before she put her make shift frosting on them. She does not like chocolate and I don't like frosting. I hate to say the rest of them just went to waste.